


Be Careful What You Wish For

by Lyzzybelle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Concerned Sam, Dean just got out of hell, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Dean Winchester, Tag to 4x8 Wishful Thinking, description of torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-01
Updated: 2014-03-08
Packaged: 2018-01-10 18:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1163104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyzzybelle/pseuds/Lyzzybelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So I was watching 4x8 a while ago and I had this thought…What if Sam had made a wish in the fountain? What would he have wished for? And what would be the consequences?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sam

**SAM**

" _It's not what I would wish for, Dean. We can't go back to the way it was."_

" _What would you wish for then?"_

" _It doesn't matter Dean. It wouldn't be real anyway."_

Sam stood in front of the fountain inside the Chinese Restaurant and looked into the clear, shallow water. The manager, still indignant over their allegations about his restaurant having a rat infestation, asked for a delay of thirty minutes to finish up with the lunch crowd before he closed down and answered their questions. Sam and Dean shared a look and Dean nodded curtly at the manager, telling him they didn't mind waiting.

Clearly disappointed, the manager obviously had hoped they would leave and return later, he scurried off to assist with closing down the kitchen. Dean had excused himself to use the restroom and Sam guarded the fountain from any more wishes. Dean was sure that once the fountain was empty, they could get a better grasp on why this particular fountain made wishes come true.

Of course, they were flying blind here- Dad's journal did not mention wishing wells.

Sam couldn't resist taking another glance at the wishes that coated the fountain bottom like a copper blanket while he fingered the cool surface of the flattened coin he held. He would never have admitted it out loud to Dean, but he _was_ tempted…but he wouldn't make a wish. A strange foreboding came over him whenever he looked at the fountain. It seemed silly, he knew, but Sam felt antsy.

" _What would you wish for then?"_ Dean's words came back to him and Sam felt a lump in his throat. If he was a normal guy, he would have rattled off any number of superficial wishes.

_A million dollars._

_Fame._

_A car that gave better mileage._

_A home._

_Jess._

_Dad._

Yet, when Dean asked him, amusement lighting up his green eyes, Sam knew there was only one thing he would wish for. All the money and fame in the world wouldn't get it for him. At this moment, he gave no thought to resurrecting the dead.

" _What would you wish for then?"_

His eyes moved away from the fountain and looked down at the flat coin he held. For sixteen years, the coin had been his constant companion. When Sam changed clothes, he always made sure he had the coin with him, it meant as much to him as the amulet he had once given to Dean.

In their life, personal possessions, other than clothes, were a rarity. The coin was given to Dean the summer after he had turned twelve, when he had helped Pastor Jim with a car wash to raise money for the church. At the end of the day, Pastor Jim approached him with a small trinket - a flattened coin.

Most likely, it had been the size of a nickel but after being flattened, it was the size of a thin quarter. The coin was obviously foreign and unlike anything the boys had ever seen. Many an hour was passed in the backseat of the Impala as their Dad drove them around the country speculating about the coin, its origins and why it had been flattened. It was one of Dean's most prized possessions - until one Christmas in Nebraska, when Sam had given Dean the amulet and had been blown away when Dean scrambled through his pockets and produced the coin for Sam.

_"This is yours now, Sammy."_

_"But Dean, you love this coin more than anything."_

_Dean shook his head and grinned at Sam, while he clutched the amulet in his hand. "Not anymore Sam."_

Sam kept the coin.

He heard the low timbre of his brother's voice as he stopped to flirt with the waitress. Sam glanced up and watched his brother flash a charming smile at the waitress - the same charming smile Sam had seen him flash a thousand times when he lied; these days it was the only smile Sam saw.

" _I'm fine, Sammy." He  would say with a grin. "I'm not tired. I'm hitting the bars…and then I am hitting the next pair of tits to bounce my way." Dean grinned and wiggled his eyebrows._

Dean looked at him and flashed the phony smile his way. He looked at Sam's hand as Sam smoothly manipulated the coin over his knuckles. Dean raised an eyebrow in a silent question.

"Thinking of a wish, Sammy?" his eyes asked.

Sam gave a slight shake of his head.

But, it was tempting…to finally know the truth. He just knew that if he knew the truth, then he might be able to make things better.

" _What would you wish for then?"_

Sam sighed and looked at the water. He would never wish out loud though. The fates, he had learned, were often cruel to them...but he couldn't stop the flash of longing within.

_I wish…_

He barely thought the words when he felt a body bump into his and the coin slipped from his fingers and flipped into the water.

He didn't hear the _plunk!_ of the coin when it hit the water. He didn't see the smile wiped from his brother's face as if someone used an eraser or hear the hoarse and strangled sound of his name being yelled through his brother's lips.

 _I wish that I knew._ He had thought.

And then everything went black.

* * *

 

It stayed black for a long time and Sam was struck by the absence of everything- light, sound, movement. It was just Sam, floating and frozen in a void of dark nothingness. If he could feel, he imagined that he would have felt cold and would have felt the goose bumps rise on his skin.

He heard laughter…low and endless and un-amused - eerily familiar and implacable at the same time. Mixed in with the laughter was a whisper – repetitive and insidious. At first the words were unintelligible and Sam tried to tune out the laughter and focus on the whispers.

" _Be careful what you wish for. Be careful what you wish for. Be…"_

He supposed it was less like a whisper and more like a hiss- each word drawn out into the next in one impossibly long breath.

A new sound joined the laughter - screams of terror and agony, faint at first but steadily increasing in volume as if Sam was traveling toward the sound.

" _No more. Please, no more. Sttttoooopppp. Please stop."_

It wasn't one voice, but a deafening cacophony of a million voices all moaning in fear and dread. Interspersed with the terrified sounds, was another sound, harsher sound that echoed around him in regular intervals, like a metronome keeping time.

_Wchhhh._

_Whchhh._

Meanwhile, the laughter and the hissing words continued.

* * *

 

Sam, unable to move, couldn't cover his ears, couldn't yell or protest. Instead, he endured.

* * *

 

Throughout his journey, he had never felt any movement, but he _knew_ he had been traveling. Abruptly, he stopped. The journey was over and he had reached his destination. He felt a slight pull and _squeezing_ all over as if his body was being pushed into something that fit snugly all over.

Like a switch had been flipped, he could suddenly _feel…_ everything. His body was spread and suspended (or at least he thought he was suspended, since he felt nothing beneath him) and each appendage was pulled taut and bound to…something. He felt the sensation of knives slipping between his skin and flesh, peeling him in one long strip like an orange.

The screams merged until the sound was one long agonizing yell and Sam realized the sound was coming from inside him.

At least he thought it was coming from inside him.

It _felt_ like it was coming from him when the last remnants of his skin was flayed from his body and Sam moaned as he lay raw, vulnerable and exposed, unable to move.

The air seemed to shift around him and Sam recognized a presence near him. Unable to see, he stared straight ahead tried in vain to _see something_.

A voice, distorted and sinister hissed in his ear.

"Winchesssster." It said, drawing out the word. "Yooouuuuur miiiine."

Sam's sense of smell kicked in as he felt the thing leaned across him toward his other ear. It smelled like a piece of meat that had gone rancid and then dipped in ammonia, a combination that burned his nose with every inhale while making him want to gag.

"Sssssoo lonnng. Waitttting so lonnnng for you, Winchesssster." Something flicked rapidly against his ear then he felt something hot and slimy move against the exposed tissue of his flayed body.

"Tassssste sooooo goooddd Winchessster."

The action was repeated once more and Sam realized that the thing-creature-whatever it was – had _licked_ him.

Next, Sam felt as if someone had wrapped his shoulder in burning barbed wire. The wire wrapped itself around his shoulder and tightened its grasp - each razor point barb dug into the exposed tissue and caused a white hot agony to rip through him. Then, he felt something pull at his arm and all at once Sam realized… _it was eating him._

Sam screamed. As the sound burst from his throat he paused, confused. The scream continued and Sam realized he was not the one screaming. The voice he heard was not his own, but Sam knew the hoarse, gravelly voice and recognized the owner.

The voice belonged to Dean. Dean was screaming.

Sam had made a wish and now it was coming true.

 _I wish I knew._ He had thought to himself back in the Chinese restaurant. And now he did.

Dean had never talked about his years in Hell and, desperate to understand and help his brother, Sam wanted to know _everything his brother had gone through._

**Be careful what you wish for.**


	2. Dean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: . For those who reviewed and favorite/followed and asked for more, I dedicate this to you. I hope I did not disappoint! Tried to keep this "T", but it wasn't easy. A shout out to TeamFreeWill1983 for giving this little chapter a read through and offering suggestions.
> 
> Disclaimer: I am not Kripke, I don't own SPN, this is purely for fun and not for profit.
> 
> Warning: This will deviate from canon somewhat and contains suggestions of torture but not too descriptive ('cause that would change the rating).

**DEAN**

Most of the time he loved his life.

What's not to love? His life was the stuff that inspired movies: action, adventure, a different hot chick every night and his gorgeous, sleek Impala - the sweetest, smoothest ride this side of…anywhere. (Seriously, his Baby was the bomb and everyone knew it.)

Now, things might have been a little less…awesome…since his return from the bowels of Hell via the Angel Express, but he was sure that he would get his bearings in no time, he was awesome that way.

So what if he threw himself into the hunt with just a little less care for the consequences and approached his pursuit of all things carnal with an intensity lately that bordered on desperation? He had been in Hell for Christos' sake….but he was Dean Winchester, BAMF and worst nightmare of all things supernatural.

He would bounce back.

Eventually.

Yeah, he could admit that he scared himself when he was interrogating ( _questioning,_ he of course meant questioning) witnesses and a stray thought would pass through his mind on the various small (painful, terrible, horrific) ways he had that would make them talk that much faster.

Yeah, he could admit that the nightmares sometimes blurred his reality and made it seem as if he was still in the Pit, that his life was still one illusion created by Alastair to give him a false sense of security only to realize that he had never left Hell. He would wake, eyes darting around whatever pay-by-the-hour hovel they had rented and squeeze his amulet until his heartbeat slowed and he could breathe.

The amulet grounded him, reminded him that he was out of the pit because when the hounds dragged his soul down under, his physical body and the amulet remained topside. In all of their tricks and visions, Dean _never_ had his amulet and, when he eventually remembered this, it reassured him that they were all just elaborate lies, designed to break him. The knowledge helped him hold out for thirty years

Yet, now _,_ when he watched in disbelief as his brother, as _Sammy,_ just freaking FADED out of existence, Dean also admitted that he hated his life. At times like this, he got why Sam craved normal _._ In a normal life, brothers did not just fade away like they were the freaking hand of Marty McFly.

"Sam?" Dean squinted in some vain hope that it was a trick of the light or that he was losing his vision.

For the first time he hoped (prayed) he was still in the Pit and that the name of the game was "How Fast Can We Make Dean Beg?" – a favorite game of Alistair's . ( _Please, please, pleaseGodIambeggingyou)_ If he was in the Pit, then this would all be one awful illusion and no matter how much it hurt, the relief he felt when he realized that it was only a game always overshadowed the pain.

_Please. Please. Please._

He lunged then stopped and his amulet bumped against his collar-bone at the movement. He blinked and his heart plummeted south when his brother did not reappear.

Instead, something cold, feral and dangerous within snapped into place.

"Sam." The sharp growl of his voice caused heads to turn in the restaurant and Dean stepped forward toward the fountain. In a few seconds, he had crossed the room and stood in the same space that his brother had occupied just a minute before.

_Please. Please let this be a game. Sammy, what the hell?_

Wildly, Dean spun around, willed his brother to jump out of thin air and yell "gotcha" like this was a children's game and Sam had just acquired the ability to disappear and reappear at will. (He would kill the little bitch, or at least kick his ass six ways to Sunday if he had.)

"Sam?" he was shouting now, the sound brought the manager pushing through the double swinging doors that led to the kitchen, alarm on his face.

He watched as the manager's mouth moved and the slight Asian man wrung his hands in worry. Iciness settled over Dean, suspicious of the man's involvement with Sam's disappearance.

Did this man have something to do with the wishes? Was this man the reason Sammy had disappeared?

Dean closed his eyes and felt the reassuring coolness of his dagger strapped around his left calf. After a deep inhale _(_ Focus _,_ dammit _,_ focus!), he opened his eyes he leaned forward toward the manager, who flinched and whimpered in what could only be described as terror. Dean already had picked out his top ten interrogation (because it would be an _interrogation_ , something happened to his god-damned BROTHER for Christos' sake) methods.

Dean wanted answers.

And he wanted them now.

* * *

 

"…nothing. I promise, I have done nothing." The restaurant was empty, all customers had left, the staff sent home and the manager pleaded, trembled so violently, Dean knew it was only a matter of time before the man wet himself.

He knew nothing.

Dean felt the rage within bubble due to his frustration as he slid his fingers over the cool steel of his blade and how easy it would be to slip the blade under the man's skin, such a relief to find an outlet. Ten years spent torturing the damned was a hard habit to break. And, if Sammy wasn't found soon…

"Enough." The soft, dangerous sound of his voice silenced the manager's appeal.

_Think, dammit!_

He tried to focus on the task at hand and push his brutal impulses aside – not an easy task without the reassuring presence of his brother to anchor him, keep him human but the thought of the disappointment he would see on his brother's face when he got him back (and Dean _would_ get him back, failure was not an option here) stilled his hand. Something strange had happened in this town. First an invisible Peeping Tom, Big Foot on a liquor/porn rampage, a teddy Bear in the middle of an existential crisis and a disappearing Sammy.

If the manager didn't have anything to do with the sudden influx of wishes coming true, then he needed to go back to Plan A.

 _Begin at the source_ …the first rule for any Hunter investigating something uncommon or supernatural. He extended his arm, brought the blade dangerously close to the manager's face before he pointed it over the man's shoulder as he directed the man's attention to the fountain.

"How do we empty it?"

The manager slumped in relief.

* * *

 

Light bounced off the various hues of copper and silver that sparkled in the empty plaster fountain as Dean crouched, feet planted in the same spot (or as close to his recollection of the spot) where Sam had stood.

"How often is the money cleaned out?" One forefinger dragged through the collection of coins when he asked his question.

"Every month or so." Nervously, the manager shifted his weight from one foot to the other, like a toddler trying not to wet their clothes. "It was last emptied over three weeks ago. We donate the change to the…" his voice trailed off when Dean waved his hand impatiently.

"Get me a bucket or something." Relieved at the chance to be useful, the manager scurried away, Dean continued to run his finger through the scattered coins.

In the kitchen, Lu Yuping paused, bucket in one hand and palm of the other hovering over the mobile telephone resting in the kitchen, his dilemma clear - he could help the deranged man out in the dining room or he could call the police. If he was a better man, like his father perhaps, then there would be no dilemma, his father had been a very brave man, a notable hero even. When Lu was twelve, his father had walked in to the neighborhood convenience store during a robbery in progress and, although the stories varied, everyone who escaped alive said it was because of his father's heroism. Unfortunately, his father was shot during a robbery and had spent eight long months in coma before dying.

Heroism had made Lu an orphan (his mother had died in childbirth) and, subsequently, a ward of the state. Hand shaking, Lu moved away from the telephone and returned to the dining room.

He wasn't a hero.

* * *

 

When Dean spotted Sammy's coin, his heart stopped. The manager helped him to pull coins from the fountain and Dean just happened to look at the moment the manager's fingers touched the coin. Without a word, he gripped the other man's wrist so tightly, the man let out a yelp of surprise before the coin could be moved. Had his brother been around, Dean would have felt compelled to make some kind of apology (after being the recipient of Sam's patented bitchface #3).

"Not yours." He growled, instead.

In a wordless promise to get his brother back, Dean curled his fingers around the flattened coin. Then, carefully, he put it into his pocket.

It took only another minute to scoop and pluck the remaining change, save one.

The last coin in the fountain was immoveable. Neither hand nor the finely sharpened point of his butterfly knife nor the crowbar he had gotten from the Impala could move the item. In the end, Dean settled for a traced replica of the coin on a piece of paper and left the restaurant.

It wasn't much of a lead, but it was something.

A few hours later Dean learned that the coin was Babylonian and came with a curse.

When the nausea hit, he spent the next hour praying the porcelian god and the implications of the curse hit home.

The wishes would be granted, but each wish had consequences. He had wished for an Italian sub and now he had something akin to food poisoning. Sam had made a wish and faded away. Dean was sure, if he followed the chain of wishers he could find the person who caused all of this chaos and Dean might be able to reverse the wishes, get Sammy back.

And if he didn't...well hell hath no fury like Dean Winchester.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If there is interest, I could probably add in one more chapter. What did you think?


End file.
